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REASONS TO BE CHEERFULBY STEVEN FRENCH

As we enter 2018 it is time to put the last few years into perspective!

The last few years in Western democracies has for many of those on the progressive, liberal or left side of politics felt like a nightmare. The rise of xenophobia, isolationism and the political outbursts of Trump and Brexit have dominated the news headlines and political discourse. The belief that we were advancing towards a more tolerant and inclusive society was put under severe strain and almost no country has been immune to a rise in the political reactionary right.This narrative certainly has a lot of truth in it. There has been a rise in the electoral successes of the populist right across the Western world and the election of Trump alongside Brexit are certainly not things that should be dismissed. That said, the framing of such ideas as a new right-wing creation emerging out of the ether is wrong. A more accurate understanding of current political events is that Trump, Brexit and the rise of the reactionary right are not a new ideological phenomena, they are not the creation of new hatreds, or a new dawn for reactionaries or quasi-fascists as they are often made out to be. They are in fact the final scream of an old order. An old order that has since the mid-1960s, and possibly even before, been losing the cultural war.

This fabled culture war, when old ideas and assumptions held in North American and Western European societies were questioned and opposed, is generally agreed to have begun in the late 1950s and reached new heights in the 1960s. It can be argued that such a struggle has been continuing until today. Through this ‘culture war’ prejudices and old assumptions regarding race, sexuality, gender and even the family itself were challenged. In Western societies we saw the legalisation and wider social acceptance of homosexuality, the rise of the feminist movement that argued that women should have the same rights, opportunities and ambitions as men and the racial equality movement that fought for minority races to have equal rights within the society they live, most powerfully seen within the civil rights movement in the United States. Deference itself, the idea that individuals necessarily inherit the commonly held assumptions of one’s society was also no longer a given.

The take off point of this culture war took place within Western societies during a material abundance that meant common people were literally richer than they had ever been. This time was also punctuated by a huge increase in the number of young people entering higher education. A false narrative often put forward by bungling amateur historians and sociologists is that we had the grey serious times of the 1950s, the hippies and counter-culture of the 1960s that brought forward a more open and tolerant society, and a return to fear, or at least a falling optimism, in the 1970s. All this was then topped off by the rise of neo-conservatism in the 1980s, particularly under Thatcher in the UK and Reagan in the United States.

This narrative is wrong. While there were indeed sudden rises in counter-cultural thought, notably the 1960s, what we see when the evidence is examined is that prejudice in every field has been progressively declining from the 1950s onwards, even up to the present day amidst the hysteria (sometimes justified hysteria) surrounding the rise of the right.

By no means is this data all encompassing, however it gives a strong indication towards views over time. Here we look at immigration and sexuality, two topics that have been discussed at length during recent political events.

​Sample of UK views on race/immigration over time:

In the UK according to Migration Observatory the percentage of people saying there were too many immigrants fell from 89% in 1970 to under 60% in 2015, despite immigration rapidly increasing between 1970 and 2015.

According to British Future in 1986 50% of the public were against marriage across ethnic lines. The figure dropped to 40% in the 1990s and now stands at 15%.

Sample of US views on race over time:

Sample of UK views on homosexuality over time:

Sample of US views on homosexuality over time:

Across all of these vectors, gender, race, sexuality we see an ever increasing acceptance and tolerance.

Too often there is the temptation to talk in terms of generations and critique them under blanket catch all ideologies, old hippie baby boomers defining the zeitgeist of the 1960s and so forth, but when we take whole societies at one point in time we must always remember that the older generation and younger generation at any moment have emerged from very different places. An 80 year old alive during the hippie-movement would have been born in the 1880s, a 40 year old would have likely been involved in World War II and grown-up in the Great Depression. A 70 year old today in the southern United States was born during the legalised separation of blacks and whites. A 70 year old in the United Kingdom was born when homosexuality was illegal and levels of immigration were vastly lower. It is generally accepted that the views of individuals are shaped more by their experience sin early life than in later life.

When we understand that our society is not made up of a ‘now’ generation we realise that attitudes are not something of the moment but a long-term mixture of different societal, political and cultural influences we can understand the reaction and fear some may feel towards a changing society. We must also be very careful to realise that within every generation and the prejudices that existed within them, there were always those that fought back against those prejudices.

When we realise there is no ‘now’ generation, we are some way to understanding why prejudice and societal notions of illiberal thought are not cooked up in the moment but change progressively over long periods of time, over generations.

The two academics that define the progress and reaction towards liberal and illiberal societal beliefs are Ronald Inglehart and Piero Ignazi. Inglehart in the late 1970s argued that increasing abundance mixed with higher educational attainment and greater individual freedom would mean that societies become less materially focused (perhaps a hypothesis that has not come to fruition) but would also become more tolerant of minorities and hold stronger liberal social positions, generally speaking. Certainly the evidence, as above, backs up Inglehart’s views in regards to social attitudes. Piero Ignazi writing in 1992 suggested that the rise of liberal social attitudes would result in a powerful reaction against these views by those who did not share in them. Almost as like in Newtonian physics, a force is opposed by an equal and opposite force.We can look at the evidence as state that Inglehart is certainly correct. We can also look at electoral success of the reactionary right (for this purpose we will take both Trump and Brexit as examples), and suggest therefore that Ignazi is correct in his assumptions, that greater societal liberalism and tolerance would result in a reactionary backlash.

Here we see the most important element of all. Age and the generation in which one was born, as a likely determinant of whether one voted for the generally assumed progressive or reactionary position in both Trump’s election victory and in Brexit. It is generally accepted that both these elections were fought to a large part on social issues, such as immigration.

In the US election of 2016 – the majority of under 40s voted Clinton, and the majority of over 40s voted Trump, with Trump’s margin of victory increasing with age, i.e. over 50s were more likely to vote Trump than the over 40s. 18-25 year olds voted for Clinton in all but 5 of the 50 US states.

Trump vote by age (trend was similar among white voters):Red indicates the percentage of each cohort voting for Trump

This picture is almost exactly mirrored with Brexit. Under 50s were far more likely to vote Remain while over 50s more likely to vote Leave. Again, as age increased the percentage voting to Leave was much higher.

One could argue, as is often done, that individuals start of liberal in youth and become more conservative with age. There is certainly truth to this, but what we see from the evidence we laid out is that liberal predisposition and attitudes to social issues is not something that has been static, but something that has been progressively improving. If we assumed that people were simply liberal in youth and conservative with age then we would not see a progress but instead a static proportion of citizens taking liberal and conservative views. Quite clearly the views people assume in their youth are quite likely to be carried with them to a great extent throughout their lives. Someone who believes homosexuality is perfectly acceptable at 20 is unlikely to think it unacceptable at 70.

We have seen the rise of reactionaries across the Western world, and yes it should give us reason to be fearful. That said, the data itself shows a strong increase in liberal attitudes and Inglehart’s view seems to be justified. We are now seeing a reaction as predicted by Ignazi way back in 1992.

By analysing the data we now see though that this reaction is not the result of an increase in hatred or prejudice. These things were always there. What we are in fact seeing is a reaction by an older generation towards changes that have been slowly occurring over half a century. The sheer success of tolerance and liberal ideas have brought about this reaction from those, mostly older individuals, who were born and had their views formed before the cultural war even started or when it was at least in its infancy.

We should never underestimate the danger of the reactionary right or the challenges that lie ahead, but to suggest this is a new phenomena is to make a false assumption both about the present and about the likely future. This is the final scream of the old order.